News Analysis: Signing Paris climate accord brings world one step closer to curbing global warming

Over 165 countries are expected to sign the Paris Agreement later on Friday, which is seen as a critical step to ensure early entry into force of the legally-binding climate accord to curb global warming.

Adopted by governments last year in Paris, the agreement sets a target of holding the global average rise in temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"Having the agreement is one thing. The next step is to sign it and to make sure it is put into law," David Nabarro, United Nations (UN) special adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, told Xinhua.

The agreement can enter into force 30 days after at least 55 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, accounting for at least 55 percent of global emissions, take the further national step of ratifying it after signing.

According to the latest UN statistics, there are 13 countries, mostly Small Island Developing States, that are expected to deposit their instruments of ratification immediately after signing the agreement on Friday.

"It is definitely creating a political momentum of implementation or early entry into force of this Paris Agreement," Selwin Hart, director of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team, told Xinhua.

IMPLEMENTATION COUNTS

The United Nations will witness a record-high number of countries to ink an international agreement in one day, but experts said what really matters is the strong political actions to implement it.

"I think the Paris agreement will enter into force very soon ... but I think the issue is how fast do we act on the agreement," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in an interview with Xinhua on Thursday.

"The agreement will be there, but then the governments need to move rather decisively first with the plan of action, with the strategy, and then of course with the implementation of that strategy," he said.

Sachs said it has become too dangerous to just wait, because 2015 was the warmest year on record, "so we are already at the point where we must move."

Echoing that point, Hart said the implementation of this agreement must start even before it enters into force.

"The infrastructure at domestic level to give effect of the provisions of the agreement must be put into place," he said, while noting that many countries are establishing a national carbon market and are putting policies in place to implement their commitments.

FINANCING MATTERS

Apart from formulating national plans, experts highlighted that to ensure the world does not continue to heat up, cleaner energy and cleaner production systems must be prioritized, which requires introducing new technologies and will cost money.

According to the Paris Agreement, on the basis of common but differentiated responsibilities, developed countries agreed to raise 100 billion U.S. dollars a year by 2020 to help developing countries cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"The promises certainly can be kept in the sense of what is promised is 100 billion dollars -- this is about 0.2 percent of the income of the rich world," said Sachs. He said this is an "absolutely achievable" goal, adding that not all of the 100 billion per year has to be in development aid; some of the funds can take on the form of loans or other kinds of mechanisms.

On the role of the United Nations in the agreement's implementation, Nabarro said the organization would help to ensure the financing so that poor countries can adopt clean living, clean energy, clean agriculture and clean transport.

The United Nations can also play a useful role in transferring technologies as well as building measurement systems to check the levels of released carbon, he added.

COOPERATION WORKS

Doubtlessly, climate change is a common challenge of the international community. Experts said cooperation among nations is pushing forward the whole process of combating the challenge.

Nabarro said China is one of the countries playing a leading role in South-South cooperation, particularly around cleaner energy, transport, and agricultural systems.

He noted that this type of cooperation is between nations that are truly transformative and that they are learning from each other's experience. "I see a huge role for South-South bilateral cooperation between nations along the lines of what China has done," Nabarro said.

What's more, China has also strengthened its cooperation with the United States on climate change. In March this year, the two states have issued a joint statement saying they will sign the agreement on April 22 and will seek to join the agreement in 2016.

"I believe it is important for the world's two largest economies, two largest emitters, to work very closely together in the post-Paris implementation phase," said Hart.

Meanwhile, Sachs said that among the United States, the European Union and China, a three-way agreement to counter climate change is really essential.

"When it comes to China, the United States, and the European Union, I don't think there is any escape from the need to move out the fossil fuel within the next half century," he said.

Sachs also noted two major financial instruments for cooperation that have been created -- one is the Global Environment Facility, and the other is the Green Climate Fund.

However, both of them need to be of a larger scale, he said. Endi